San Antonio man found guilty in death of 14-year-old friend

Ryan Rodriguez was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of 14-year-old Melody Cerros.

Ryan Rodriguez was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of 14-year-old Melody Cerros.

Photo: William Luther /San Antonio Express-News

Photo: William Luther /San Antonio Express-News

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Ryan Rodriguez was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of 14-year-old Melody Cerros.

Ryan Rodriguez was sentenced to 10 years in prison after being found guilty of criminally negligent homicide in the death of 14-year-old Melody Cerros.

Photo: William Luther /San Antonio Express-News

San Antonio man found guilty in death of 14-year-old friend

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With his voice cracking, a man found guilty Monday of criminally negligent homicide told the jury that convicted him and the family of the girl he killed that if he could take it back, he would.

“I’m sorry,” Ryan Rodriguez said after jurors convicted him in the fatal shooting of one of his friends, Melody Cerros, 14, whom Rodriguez shot in the head while the two were hanging out June 28, 2016, at a home in the 8600 block of Star Creek Drive on the far West Side. “I wish none of this ever happened.”

Rodriguez was 19 when he was arrested and originally charged with manslaughter in the death of Cerros. State District Judge Lori Valenzuela allowed the jury to consider the lesser charge of criminally negligent homicide after the defense successfully argued that the defendant had no previous criminal record and the tragedy was an accident.

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Media: San Antonio Express-News

Isaac Cantu, 19, testified last week that he had found the gun in a West Side alley two days before the shooting. He said he and Rodriguez were looking at the gun, checking the chamber and removing and checking the clip. Cantu said after he emptied the chamber, he handed the gun to Rodriguez, who asked if it was loaded. Cantu said it wasn’t, then watched as Rodriguez racked the slide, pointed it at Cerros and fired.

“I meant that there wasn’t one in the chamber,” Cantu told the jury last week. “I checked it out and made sure there was no bullet in the chamber, but the clip was in.”

It took the jury a little more than three hours to render the guilty verdict Monday afternoon in the 437th state District Court.

“She was my friend,” Rodriguez told the jury. “It was an accident. I didn’t mean to do it.”

The state and defense rested late in the afternoon in the punishment phase of the trial, so Valenzuela released the jurors until Tuesday morning for closing statements and deliberations.

Rodriguez, now 21, faces two to 10 years in prison for the charge of criminally negligent homicide with a deadly weapon, a third-degree felony.